This invention relates to antennas and more particularly to directional driven-array antennas for use in fast switching directional antennas.
In a radio frequency wireless mesh network for conveying packets, there is a need to maximize network capacity. Current mesh network systems employ single element omnidirectional antennas which can receive and transmit packets on a single frequency in several directions in quick succession. However, the simplicity of single element antennas does not allow for directional gain or reduction of contention and interference from undesired packets in selected directions. Multiple directional antennas would be required to overcome such problems, but, multiple directional antennas are inherently limited to specific directions and are by comparison with single antennas, unacceptably expensive to implement. What is needed is a direction-agile gain antenna system which is relatively low cost and easy to implement.